Chapter 39 Blaise
I was on fire. Fucking fire ripping through my skin like a thousand stinging insects. And each time I’d get a small moment of relief from the burning, my body cracked and contorted as it reshaped itself.
The pain.
Unbearable.
I wanted to die.
By the time I made it outside, I could hardly breathe.
I didn’t miss the fear in Katarina’s eyes when she saw what was happening to me, yet I left her locked up in my bedroom like a goddamned psychopath.
But I certainly didn’t want to shift into a dragon inside the house, and I was fearful it could happen at any moment.
I should be excited. My dragon was finally going to show himself.
I was going to fucking shift and prove all of those assholes who looked down on me for being a half-breed wrong.
And maybe stomp them in the process. Or burn them.
Yet, the pain of what my body was going through right now…
well, it had me doubting if it was all worth it.
“Blaise!” Katarina shouted from somewhere behind me. Her voice shook with fear, and I didn’t want to know if she was fearful of me or of what was happening to me.
Submit, a voice in my head commanded.
I stumbled forward, unfamiliar with the sound and hating the way my back just snapped in two different places.
My arms involuntarily flew out to the side as my skin stretched around a much larger chest than I had a few minutes ago.
Pain ripped through every cell, and tears fell from my eyes on their own accord.
“It fucking hurts,” I muttered softly enough that Katarina wouldn’t hear my weakness.
Give me your body, the voice said again.
The wind from the ocean rushed up and over the cliff, bringing with it the bitter aroma of low tide and the piercing sounds of the nesting birds.
My legs broke as they elongated, and I landed hard near the edge.
Katarina was still screaming. I was still crying.
And somewhere inside, my animal was still trying to break free.
Submit!
I tried to push to my feet, but the agony was too much to bear.
I wanted to submit but I didn’t know how.
One of the problems with having no one around like you is that there’s no one available to coach you through shit like this.
I had no one. I was alone and I was dying. I was on fire and I was dying.
I was dying.
Give me control and the pain will stop.
I half wondered if I imagined the voice inside as a way to cope.
I could feel Katarina behind me. I heard her cries.
But when I tried to stand for the last time, my feet buckled beneath me, and I tumbled forward.
Just as my shoulder slammed into the rock jutting out from the cliff’s edge, I felt my body start to fall and realized there was nothing I could do about it.
Giving in to the fact that I was going to smash into the rocky shores below, which also meant all my pain would soon be gone, I closed my eyes and let out my breath.
The wind rushed up around me. The cool, moist air wrapped me in a cocoon of sorts while I plummeted to my death. Birds squawked. Waves crashed. And a profound, terrifying roar echoed off the rock cliffs surrounding the cove.
A roar that came from somewhere deep inside my chest.
I screamed in pain as my whole body exploded. Not because I’d hit the rocks jutting up from the dark waters beneath me but because something else happened.
I’d shifted.
For the first time in my life.
As though instinct took hold, I threw my arms out to the side to stop rolling head over foot. No, not arms. Wings. I had fucking wings, and they were monstrous. But I was still falling, and that voice deep inside willed me to use all my strength to pump those wings as hard as I could.
It was weird—the air pushing against the skin that connected my chest to the wings.
I felt the moment I started to defy gravity and get the lift I needed so I didn’t splatter into pieces.
I stopped rolling and I focused on the horizon, willing everything in me to stop the fall.
My muscles burned with the weight my oversized body now bore.
But I fought. I fought to get some air. I fought to learn how to make my new body do what I want.
And I fought not to die because Katarina was up on that cliff crying for me right now.
I needed to live for her.
I opened my mouth and let out another animalistic roar that reverberated all around me.
The birds stopped calling and silence spread across the cove as I soared toward the sea.
My legs, now hanging much lower than before, skimmed the surface of the water.
I beat my wings harder to gain just a few extra feet and lifted out of the ocean.
And if my new face would have allowed me to smile, I would have.
This was fucking amazing.
Gliding just a few feet above the water’s surface, I relished in the cold mist and fresh breeze pelting my face.
In no time at all, I had flown beyond the cove and found myself heading out to sea.
It amazed me how much ground I could cover so quickly in this new form, and somewhere deep inside, my dragon huffed a laugh like he’d been trying to tell me this for a very long time.
But I couldn’t keep flying away from my home and from my Katarina.
Using my instincts that seemed to take control of all human thoughts, I banked to the left and beat my wings over and over until I was a thousand feet in the sky and trying to find the air currents my internal animal guided me toward.
It took several tries. Like a new baby bird learning to fly for the first time, I got caught in several downdrafts.
One of them almost pushed me straight into the far edge of the cliff, but I managed to maneuver away with just my feet smacking the white, chalky rocks.
I figured that might be a bit painful later, but it was definitely better than going chest-first into the deadly protrusion.
Within ten minutes, I felt like I had conquered flying. I soared up and over the bay, fully aware that if I went too far north, I risked exposing myself to the local townspeople. But if I stayed on the southern end, I had twenty miles and two more coves to travel unnoticed.
So that’s what I did. Just to give me enough time to figure out my body and learn how to use the air in my favor. At one point, I glided so close to a group of seals that I forced them to abandon their safety on the rocky ledge and watched as they dove deep below the water to avoid being hunted.
I’d be lying if I said that hadn’t amused both me and my animal. And it was strange. For so long we’d been two souls trapped in one body—me the owner and him the passenger. But now we flew through the Isles of Scotland as one beast. One mind.
And I had Katarina to thank for it.
Thoughts of her swarmed in my head and I made the decision to get back up to my home so she could see that I was all right. I was better than all right. I was a fucking fantastic dragon.
The air currents helped guide me up and over the cliff that I owned as part of the estate.
I’d bought this place twenty years ago. It was falling apart and required a lot of work, but I needed the distraction.
The realtor suggested I turn the ruins into a tourist attraction and use that money to build trails on the land, but I knew immediately I would never do that.
No, this was my sanctuary away from the world, where I could hide and play and do anything I wanted without judgment.
Thoughts of the past dissipated the moment I lifted high enough to see my Katarina. She was standing near the edge, too close to the edge, and looking up at me with wide eyes. Her hands covered her mouth and even from my distance, I could see the tears in her eyes.
Beating my wings to hold myself in the air, I looked down at her and let out a roar.
I meant it as a greeting, but when her hair blew around her face and she stumbled back several steps, I realized that might have been a little too forceful.
Shaking my head and scolding myself for the lack of control, I flew higher in the air and drifted over the land.
The lake on the other side of the ancient ruins glistened in the afternoon light.
The castle itself almost seemed to glow with the way the rays bounced off the old sandstone walls.
I’d never seen my land from this vantage point, and something about it soothed my soul.
Banking to the right so that I flew over the lake and circled back to Katarina, I suddenly had a thought.
How the hell do I land? Of course, I’d watched the birds do it for years, but now that I was the one up in the air who needed to get my feet on the ground, I had a moment of sheer panic.
I was flying straight toward the cliff again.
What if I missed? What if I bounced off the ground and tumbled back over that abyss?
No, I wouldn’t put Katarina through that again.
So, I soared over her head and out to the sea once more.
She shouted at me, but I was too afraid of the strength of my roar to say anything back.
In no time at all, I had circled my way around the bay with my head now pointing toward the castle.
At least this way, if I had any issues landing, the worst-case scenario was that I’d roll into the lake.
Katarina waved her arms over her head as I soared by.
The ground was closing in on me, so before I could chicken out, I lifted my chest and lowered my legs in preparation for the landing.
At first, my feet slid along the grassy mounds, kicking up clumps of dirt as I went.
But then I ran into a boulder, which disrupted my forward motion, and before I knew what was happening, I was on the ground and rolling head over heels.